occupational outlook handbook

A READY REFERENCE GUIDE ON CAREER INFORMATION

BY KATIE STANTON

Occupational Outlook Handbook

What is the Occupational Outlook Handbook?

The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) contains information on hundreds of job fields. It provides users with career information such as projected growth in a field, average annual wages, amount of education required, and more.

Data is gathered and updated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (under the US Dept of Labor).

The OOH contains a searchable glossary and index.

How to access

The OOH can be accessed by anyone for free. It only requires an Internet connection.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/home.htm

What can the OOH do for me?

Provide median wage information.Inform users of projected job growth over 10

years.Inform users about work environments specific to

occupation.Allow users to search general fields or/and

specific searches by job title.Provide links to career guidance, employment

rights, and resources for more detailed data.Users can view Handbook in English or Spanish.

How is it arranged?

The OOH uses familiar Google-like searches. Drop down menus filter specific information.

Language used on the site is user friendly.

Occupations can also be searched through the index.

How to search

Occupations can be searched several ways. One way to search is via the search bar on the homepage.

How to search

For someone who isn’t sure what career or field they’re looking for, a search through the Occupation Finder will list all careers in the OOH alphabetically.

How to search

Users can also search through the general Occupation Group section, the

A-Z Index, or by the Select Occupation drop down menus on the homepage. On the next slide, we’ll go through an example.

Patron question - Search bar example

A patron asks, “how much money do chiropractors make in a year?”

We type chiropractor into the search bar:

Search bar example (ctd.)

The page that comes up lists a series of facts. Median pay (as of 2014) is listed first. We can see that chiropractors make almost $67,000 annually.

Search bar example (ctd.)

Scrolling down, we can also see things like work environment, how to become a chiropractor, data by US state, similar occupations, and more.

Patron Question - General search

What if a patron has a question about a less specific occupation? For example, “What fields will grow the most?” This is easy to find. Let’s go back to the homepage and look closer at the drop down menus.

General question search (ctd.)

We can go to the Growth Rate drop down menu and select “30 percent or faster” and click Go.


The filter gives us 12 results. We can filter these by education required, pay, training, and more.


Another way we could search for job growth on the homepage is by the “Fastest Growing” button under Browse Occupations.


On this page we can see 20 occupations with the highest projected employment change from 2014-2024.

More content

The OOH is an intuitive reference resource that contains a great deal of career information.

OOH site map provides quick links to all the content found in the Handbook: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ooh-site-map.htm

OOH Faq gives information on further questions: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/ooh-faqs.htm

The OOH provides a more detailed description of the sections within each occupational profile:

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/occupational-information-included-in-the-ooh.htm

Further questions

If patrons have any questions about the Occupational Outlook Handbook, please don’t hesitate to ask a librarian at the reference desk!

Citations

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2016-17 Edition, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/home.htm (visited March 18, 2016).

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occupational outlook handbook

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